Epistemology & Philosophy of Science

The article is dedicated to the identification and analysis of existential dimensions of science, i.e., the dependence of consciousness, activity and communication of scientists on special forms of scientific culture – life-meaning universals (existentials). The article outlines the contours of the problem field of existential challenges rooted in the real life of modern science, in the crisis of the Enlightenment idea of scientific progress, in the mismatch of the norms and ideals of scientists with everyday ideas and needs. The origins of the theoretical formulation of the existential problems of science are found in the dilemma of profession and vocation (M. Weber). This is a controversy that problematizes the relationship between the scientist’s desire for objective knowledge, on the one hand, and the human dimension of scientific activity and communication, on the other. The article singles out the particular types of existing, or boundary situations in science, in which the experiences of scientists are ordered and problematized in relation to archetypal values – freedom, objectivity, creativity, rationality, truth, success, as well as in relation to such ontological categories as space and time, which reveal their value-ladeness. The subjective dimension of science, in which a personality manifests herself as overcoming internal conflicts, a free and thinking being, qualifies as the subject of an emerging research trend – the existential philosophy of science.

The author explores to the conditions for implementation of science as a public good and connects these conditions with the problem of epistemic injustice. She proposes the hypothesis that in order to implement science as a public good or actualize it as a source of diversity, it is necessary to focus theoretical attention on the concept of distributed scientific cognition and allow for the possibility of relevant practices. The rules of distributed scientific cognition practices can and should ensure both the epistemic constructiveness of science and its epistemic justice, legitimizing the openness of access to scientific cognition distributed outside the scientific community. The text reveals the main characteristics of the concept of distributed cognition, introduced by E. Hutchins. The author proposes additionally take into account two meanings of distributed scientific cognition – extensive and intensive. The first refers to the possibility of unlimited addition of participants in cognition with a reasonable relevance of their positions. The second opens up the perspective of working on a distribution that has not yet happened and suggests that any epistemic position can be distributed. She also demonstrates the applicability of the concept to relevant scientific practices related to both professional scientific communication and public communication of science.

While recognizing the general fruitfulness of the concept of distributed scientific knowledge and the importance of the study of science from the point of view of epistemic (in)justice, we would like to present a number of doubts about the rationale for this synthesis. Of course, it is difficult to argue with the fact that the informant in ethnographic research can act as a co-author and at the same time as an object of research, “giving change”. Here we are obviously faced with a diversity of epistemic positions and the resulting distributed knowledge. The only question is to what extent this exotic example allows generalization within the framework of social cognition, not to mention the natural sciences and mathematics. Can we expect a special kind of mathematics or natural scientific generalizations from the natives? That they are willing to share the accumulated data about native nature, which they understand better than visiting white researchers, is beyond doubt, but is not this inferior function of the provider of scientific data rather a vestige of the colonial worldview?

The article analyzes the possibility of producing cognitive diversity through the unification of scientific knowledge. In the article under discussion, L.V. Shipovalova notes that the production of diversity is the most important task of science. It can be solved by constructing distributed cognition practices that can bridge the epistemic gap between scientists and lay people. In contrast to this position, it is shown that within the framework of modern technoscience, one of the mechanisms for the production of diversity can be the unification of scientific knowledge. Before the formation of technoscience, it was assumed that the search for fundamental laws was the key task of scientific research. At the same time, a special role was assigned to the disciplinary structure of science. Only within the framework of a particular scientific discipline could these laws be found. As a result, one of the main mechanisms of “unification” could become scientific imperialism, which implies a large-scale use of ontological assumptions, methods and metaphors of one discipline in another. In this case, the unification of knowledge reduces its diversity. In modern technoscience, the solution of applied problems and the design of research equipment plays a key role. The result can be achieved only in the process of complex interdisciplinary research involving the interaction of scientists from various disciplines and other actors interested in the scientific result. In the process of joint work, an interdisciplinary synthesis of knowledge can be formed. Such unification leads to an increase in cognitive diversity.

In this remark to the article by L.V. Shipovalova, doubts are expressed about the thesis about the insolvency of consensus in the conditions of distributed cognition. According to the author, distributed cognition does not imply rejection of consensus, but complements it. Using the example of the problems of technology management and their assessment, as well as the risk situations accompanying them, a more generalized interpretation of consensus is proposed that goes beyond communication in science. In this interpretation, consensus is a dialogue between science and non-science and involves a large number of participants in the absence of a predetermined order or degree of significance of evaluating their arguments. The need to appeal to consensus is justified by the fact that the assessment of consequences and risks is carried out in a situation of epistemological uncertainty. Technology management is lagging, i.e. it is reactive, not projective. It is noted that following the principles of consensus allows you to include a significant amount of available knowledge in the discussion field and prevent undesirable consequences when making decisions. The author emphasizes the normative nature of consensus, which is a requirement for collective decision-making when assessing the consequences of technologies.

In the article, I consider the problem of distributed scientific knowledge in two aspects: (1) from the point of view of distributed cognition as one of the ways for scientists to obtain scientific knowledge; (2) from the point of view of recruiting scientific personnel to the academy. I believe that in both the cases the problem of epistemic injustice in relation to new participants in the cognitive process remains. The concept of distributed cognition, in my opinion, is not able by itself to solve the problem of epistemic injustice and unequal access to both the results of scientific research and the status of their participants, that is, to make a transition from epistemic asymmetry to epistemic balance or parity of the parties. The most productive implication of the concept of distributed cognition is that its application to scientific practice highlights situations of epistemic injustice, each time on an ever-increasing scale. Finally, I return to the concept of science as a public good and consider some of its implications from the perspective of the classical understanding of science and the possibilities for redressing epistemic injustice.

The author consider critical remarks of opponents about the idea of distributed scientific cognition, its connection with the concept of science as a source of epistemic diversity. She notes the importance of the concept of consensus and unification of scientific disciplines, and emphasizes relevance the distribution of scientific cognition binding the diverse in situations of problematic unity.

The paper explores representationalist theories of mind in the context of the mind-body problem and the hard problem of consciousness. The mind-body problem is related to the substantial dualism, according to which there are two independent types of objects – physical and mental. For a materialistically oriented metaphysics, such a dualism was unacceptable. In the second half of the twentieth century. a new version of dualism appeared – the dualism of properties. Its essence lies in the fact that it is not the existence of mental substances that is affirmed, but the existence of phenomenal properties of experience that are irreducible to physical and functional properties. The dualism of properties is associated with the hard problem of consciousness – why are certain neurophysiological processes accompanied by a qualitative experience? The problem of a naturalistic explanation of the phenomenal characteristics of experience has become a new threat to naturalistic metaphysics. The first part of the work analyzes the philosophical context of the formation of cognitive science. It is shown how functionalism and representationalism became the two main philosophical positions that underlie this discipline. The second part deals with an attempt to solve the mind-body problem through the naturalization of intentionality. It is shown that teleosemantic representationalism, within the framework of which this naturalistic project was implemented, is not able to explain the phenomenon of misrepresentation, which plays a crucial role for the idea of representation as such. The final part of the study evaluates an attempt to answer the hard problem of consciousness by reducing the phenomenal character of experience to representational content. The author demonstrates that such a reduction leads to an ontology with non-instantiated properties and non-existent objects, which is an undesirable consequence for a physicalism.

This article explores conventional implicatures and presuppusitions as the main parts of utterance’s content expressing its implied meaning. The article considers a discussion around taxonomy of meaning types, which is an important problem for the philosophy of language. The main shared properties of these semantic components are examined on various examples: projection, conventionality, and non-cancellability. The article provides a criteria for differentiation of these parts of meaning: implicatures are speaker-oriented. This unique semantic property is explained within the epistemic approach using the concepts of common knowledge and agent’s beliefs. At the end, the logical explanation of the differences between conventional implicatures and presuppositions is compared with the theory of impositions and formal discursive approach.

Social philosophy of science views science as a public good in cognitive, political-economic and moral terms, and as a humanistic project. The author attempts to combine the economics of science and the social philosophy of science into a single exchange zone. The article discusses this problem in relation to technoscience with an emphasis on pragmatically oriented resource-efficient issues. The author transfers the experience of economics, management, engineering and industry to the level of philosophical reflections of science and technology. Innovative activity in technoscience can be imagined using Aristotle's universal scheme of underlying causes. Science as a cognitive resource is involved in socio-cultural construction using material and cultural resources. The author poses the problem of resource efficiency, which means a balanced interconnected set of resources of social practices. The installation of resource efficiency in the engineering environment is thought as the basis of material culture. Economists identify five main types of resources – material, financial, labor, temporary, information. Information and communication resources play a key role in the digital society. Analyzing the problems of technoscience as a public good leads to the allocation of cognitive resources and moral resources. Cognitive resources in science are associated with the intellectual potential of teams of researchers, individual scientists and engineers. The author poses the problem of moral resources in the aspect of the ethics of science, the role of responsibility for the formation of ideas and projects, research and their consequences. The problem of material, financial, labor, temporary, information and communication, cognitive and moral resources in the field of science has a socio-philosophical dimension. The article discusses the criteria for effectively engaging the potential of a cognitive resource in science in social practices. The author considers the problem of cognitive resources using examples of cooperation between scientists and representatives of the tradition, the movement of scientific volunteers.

The article analyzes the possibility of applying E. Goffman's microsociological frame analysis to everyday online interaction and the difficulties associated with this application. The article criticizes empirically unjustified and methodologically unproductive guiding distinctions: real/virtual and authentic/medial. Online interactions and digital technologies do not create a virtual reality separate from everyday life, do not make communication more mediated or less authentic, but are embedded in the existing everyday reality and provide alternative tools for impression management, impose specific technical constraints and provide specific opportunities. The rich tools of E. Hoffman's frame analysis can be effectively applied to the study of online interaction, provided that two assumptions are reconsidered: the special status of face-to-face interaction and blindness to things. In place of these positions, we propose a symmetrical description of face-to-face and online interaction, as well as an increased attention to the logic of technical and interface couplings of digital media. We conclude that revisiting these provisions will not destroy the conceptual core of E. Goffman's theory, but rather will allow us to apply frame analysis to the study of online interaction rituals. The microsociology of everyday life can complement the theoretical constructs of the Science and technology studies and Actor-network theory, which leave everyday interactions, the grammar of the interaction order, and the “Lebenswelt” on the periphery of research.

The article examines a set of scientific projects referred to the study of the prehistoric period of the Earth and the resurrection of extinct animal species using the characteristics of a global scientific project developed by I.T. Kasavin. The author reveals the unobvious connections between scientific and extra-scientific factors (such as media, utopianism, the influence of cultural paradigms, etc.), in particular, the influence of such scientific and cultural trends as posthumanism and global evolutionism was shown. The paradoxical nature of this set of projects is reflected by prospects and advantages associated with its implementation, what can be explained by the significant ideological and psychological component in its composition. The author considers the Pleistocene park in Yakutia awaiting its settlement by “resurrected” mammoths, as a Russian example of a global scientific project belonging to this direction. In addition to the identified by I.T. Kasavin characteristics the author proposes such a property of the global scientific and engineering project as the scientific and sociotechnical imaginary. The author briefly discusses a concept of the sociotechnical imaginaries in the context of the works by Sh. Jasanoff. As well the author consideres the scientific imagination (the concept of which is still based on Jasanoff’s ideas) and its role in science diplomacy using the work of S. Robinson. Finally the article concludes about the problematic points of using the concept of imaginaries in the study of science and technology (vagueness, inconsistency, lack of elaboration, if any possible) and makes a comparison of this concept with the idea of a global scientific project.

In discussions about the Scientific Revolution, a key expression is “modern science”. Its traditional understanding – mathematization and experimentation – is too weak: Euclid’s geometry and Archimedes’ physics were both perfectly mathematical and were based on objective experience. And it is too strong: in natural sciences beyond physics, math is quite limited. Joseph Needham in his Grand Question actually focused on modern physics originating with Galileo. To make this question really historical, it is narrowed down to physics and expanded in cultural time and space: Which feature of modern physics, absent in Greco-Roman and Medieval sciences, prevented the next major advance after Archimedes, and prevented non-Europeans to join modern science for centuries after Galileo and up to the 20th century? In modern physics, besides the tools of mathematics and experiment, no less important is the third tool, described by Einstein as "the boldest speculation [to] bridge the gaps between the empirical data." This tool implies belief in the hidden fundamental laws of the universe and the right to invent fundamental concepts that are not directly observable, but can be tested experimentally along with the theory based on them. Such a belief, or the postulate of modern science, is the key distinction of modern physics. Among the great modern physicists there were eight theorists who successfully invented new fundamental concepts. And each of these inventions led to breakthrough advances of modern physics.

The “Stehr vector” is a metaphor associated with the name of the modern philosopher and sociologist of science Niko Stehr and designating the trajectory of movement towards a “knowledge society”, where intellectual achievements as a public good have the highest value – they are priceless and, therefore, are not sold or bought, and access to them is free. Since a number of obstacles are characteristic to the formation of the ascent to the knowledge society, the main one is the usurpation of cognitive resources by digital giants with the help of legal coding tools for intellectual products. Knowledge is expropriated from its creators – scientists – and then sold, thereby further enriching the “knowledge monopolists”. The “Stehr vector”, overcoming such barriers, is aimed at the future, where different forms of social exchange are developing on the model of social communications among representatives of the “creative class” (R. Florida), concentrated in the centers of knowledge – cities with great scientific and educational potential. Since the “city of knowledge” is a cognitive generator, as a result, the ability to think scientifically becomes a property of every person. The article shows that certain analogies are possible between “cities of knowledge” as a “new utopia” developing in the algorithms of the “Stehr vector”, and the first university cities in Medieval Europe, which arose and developed as accumulators of knowledge and university life. These “new Middle Ages” promise to be more intellectually free than modern knowledge capitalism. Thus, the “Stern vector” makes it possible to design not the Berdyaev dystopian version of the “New Middle Ages”, but, on the contrary, more intellectually free version than modern knowledge capitalism.

The present paper aims to examine the biological works of Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698–1759), a prominent French scientist and philosopher, on the problems of animal reproduction and heredity. His scientific career exemplifies how, in mid-eighteenth-century Europe, various scientific disciplines were intertwined with literature, art, and philosophy. In one of his major publications dealing with these issues, “Venus physique” (1745), from one role to another time and again, combining theory, observation, everyday experience, and literary narrative. His objections to preformationism unfold in a stylized literary context that itself references the more personal context of salon conversation and flirtation. Maupertuis’s epigenetic conception of reproduction (with its origins in Antiquity) drew on a wide range of arguments from a variety of sources: anatomy and monster studies, observations of racial differences and family resemblance, analysis of the breeding experience of animal breeders, microscopic observations, and chemical insights. The French scientist presented the dynamics of processes in living nature in terms of naturalized desire and aversion, which function as guiding inclinations inherent in the smallest units of organic matter. In “Venus physique”, Maupertuis, in presenting his biological views, played on the appeal in certain Parisian circles of socially acceptable epathetics associated with philosophical texts, eroticism, unorthodox religious beliefs, and illicit sexual liaisons.

This text is devoted to the question of using mixed methods in social sciences. The attention is paid to the positions of leaders in the field, articulated by the uplevel “Journal of Mixed Methods Research”. The main results and discussions on the journal’s pages will be outlined briefly. As scholars note, mixed methods provide an integrative methodology in social sciences and a third paradigm beyond quantitative and qualitative approaches within social research. The third methodological paradigm is distinguished by pluralism and pragmatism, openness and flexibility of principles. Quantitative and qualitative methods in social cognition are well complemented by digital tools. In many methodological works one can find descriptions of software products by which mixed research is commonly produced. The purpose of the article is to review the important results and discussions published in JMMR, describe the philosophical and methodological principles that shape the basis for integrative research, and compare them with other traditions of reflection on methodology of social cognition. In conclusion, it is said that there is a continuum of different scientific studies, where quantitative and qualitative methodologies may be treated only as the basic types of design. A review helps to validate one more conclusion: there is no radical opposition between social and nomological sciences grounded in the nature of their methods, as philosophers presuppose. Finally, mixed methods research is highly relevant to philosophy, where qualitative analysis has always prevailed.

This text is a review of a collective monograph published in 2023 [Altshuler, 2023], dedicated to the areas of contact between philosophy and linguistics. By offering an overview of a number of representative works in the collection, the authors strive not only to attract the reader to the problems of the philosophy of language, but also to arouse interest in the methods of interdisciplinary analysis.

In the XXth century naturalism and anti-naturalism, including the ideas of transcendentalism and a priori in Kant’s sense, considered as a kind of conceptual antipodes, conceptual oppositions in relation to the antagonism of their methodological attitudes and principles. However, at the turn of the XXIth century, the intensive development of cognitive studies, accompanied by the expansion of the empirical base, pushed the need to revise the traditionally accepted incompatibility of naturalism and anti-naturalism. The article has the goal to assess the possibility of synthesis of naturalism and anti-naturalism in the context of the idea and methodology of biocultural co-constructivism. Such a synthesis presupposes the rejection of biophobia, inherent for social science and humanities, the recognition of the heuristic significance of the idea of activity-type transcendentalism developing original Kantian ideas, as well as ascribing the ontological status to the previously considered a priori categories (the discovery of the brain’s navigation system, neural networks responsible for the “sense of number”, etc.). We claim that non-biological and non-genetic – social and cultural in their status – factors have a noticeable effect on the functions of neural structures, and the activity of various areas of the brain as a whole. The biological trajectory of the evolution of living creatures, which has traditionally been described in terms of naturalism, turns out to be closely intersecting with the socio-cultural trajectory of its development, previously described in terms of anti-naturalism. Therefore, a synthesis of naturalism and anti-naturalism is quite acceptable, which does not allow the concept of “naturalized apriorism” to be considered an oxymoron.